I was in the middle of a 10 year stay in London. I had recently picked up Steve Earle’s “Train a Comin’” after seeing him on the BBC with Emmylou Harris and Daniel Lanois singing his song “Goodbye”.

One song really hit me hard: Tecumseh Valley by Townes Van Zandt. I knew the name but had never really listened to him. A few weeks later he’d be playing in my favourite London venue back then: The Borderline. It was my first Townes gig and unfortunately also the last.

Lowlands & Friends play Townes Van Zandt’s last set.

In 2012, for the 100th anniversary of Woody Guthrie’s birth, Lowlands invited friends from their local scene of Pavia and Northern Italy, and played a selection of Woody Guthrie tunes. It was a zero budget album recorded in kitchens and garages. Mainly acoustic, the album gathered excellent reviews and got played on the radio in Europe and the US, ending up on the BBC, on RTE in Ireland, Radio Poplare in Italy and even made it onto Lufthansa airplanes on their folk playlist.

In a similar vein, in 2016, Lowlands are inviting their friends, this time from further away than Pavia, reaching out to Austin,Texas and Melbourne, Australia via Stockholm, Sweden and of course London, to play, on its 20th anniversary, Townes Van Zandt’s last ever set, that Edward Abbiati of lowlands witnessed at the Borderline on December 3rd 1996.

All songs are duets and often feature members of Lowlands pairing up with members of other bands.